(RNS) — You would not think it would be this way. Given the situation, you would think I would be seeing people walking around Jerusalem with sad faces. Or, angry faces. Or, perhaps, empty stares.
But, that is not the way it has been at all.
I just returned from spending a little more than a week in Jerusalem — studying, traveling and experiencing everyday life. I encountered the aftermath of the horrors of Oct. 7 — the remnants of Kibbutz Nir Or; the memorials to the slain young people at the Nova music festival; a visit to a trauma center for women; an encounter with a freed hostage.
But walking through the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, looking intently at the people, though I can’t possibly know what people bear within their souls, I am seeing happiness — or, if not happiness, then at least a kind of peacefulness. Even if it is a peacefulness that belies what is going on in their inner lives.
Why? Why are Israelis, as a rule, such happy people? Why does Israel rank so high on the list of happiest countries — fifth in the list — the only non-Nordic country to score so high?
That is the subject of a new book by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, “The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World.”
You might know their previous book, “Start-Up Nation,” about Israel’s economic and technological success.
This book is different. This is about Israel’s emotional success. Considering the grim phenomenon of “deaths of despair” — suicide, addictions and other health issues that come from emotional turmoil, it asks why Israel has the lowest rate of “deaths of despair” among other wealthy countries.
Israel also has one of the strongest fertility rates in the world — and not just among the haredim, who will have eight children (or more). Even and especially secular Israelis will have four and five children. Israel as a result has one of the lowest median ages in the developed world. Israel is young and growing, while other wealthy nations are aging and shrinking.
So, why?
Senor and Singer make it clear: It is all about connection, belonging and meaning. Israelis feel connected to one another. They feel they are part of a national project. This gives their lives meaning, and it creates a larger sense of national community.
Military service is a large part of the puzzle. The people you serve with become your lifelong friends, your family. In large measure, those relationships contributed to a national sense of connection that fostered the fabled “start-up nation.”
More than that, there is that Israeli sense of family, with, as Singer says, “Passover every week.” Every week, Israeli families gather for Shabbat dinner, with every available generation in attendance.
So, for a few minutes: set aside the depressing news that emanates from the region on a daily basis — which I would not and cannot deny. Israel is not Disney World. Far from it.
But, then again, Israel is far more than its policies. Israel is its creativity, its resilience, its devotion to its national culture, its music, its literature, its films, its food — its joy.
There is something else, as well, something I experienced the other evening in Jerusalem that propelled me into a serious violation of the 10th Commandment.
I coveted what I saw.
It happened at the First Station in Jerusalem, the renovated Ottoman-era train station. It was part of a program to spread chesed — loving kindness — as a prayerful hope for the safe return of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the best-known hostages still held in Gaza.
The event was a communal singalong — Israelis and others gathered together, going through “the Israeli song book,” singing popular, classic and patriotic songs. Perhaps a thousand of us.
Here is a short video.
This was a very diverse crowd. There were Israelis and others from every walk of life: observant, secular, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. Murals depicted figures at prayer, prominently featuring Muslim women.
I coveted this gathering.
It got me wondering: Why don’t we do this in the United States?
Did we ever do this? I think we might have done so. I suspect such group song sessions have been episodic and holiday related — either for Christmas or the Fourth of July.
Group singing on a regular basis? Yes, Phish concerts. Rock concerts.
But, something larger? American folk songs? American standards? The greatest hits of the ’60s and ’70s?
I don’t think so.
I am thinking of the work of Robert Putnam, whose often-cited 2000 book “Bowling Alone” is about the loss of social capital in the United States. Putnam laments the shrinkage of informal and formal groupings (i.e., the bowling league and the Elks and other organizations). This is what my clergy colleagues long to create — a web of relationships, or what Ron Wolfson called “relational Judaism.”
Many people do not know that Putnam’s earlier work was about Italian society. This is what he discovered: The communities in Italy that had the strongest civic engagement were also the communities that had choral singing.
You want people to begin to feel like they are part of something bigger?
Start with singing together.
Israel knows that. A youth choir made up of Israelis and Palestinians has advanced through the audition round of “America’s Got Talent.” It is hard to hate when you are singing together.
America could know that.
When a MAGA guy and a “woke” leftist are sitting near each other on folding chairs in a park, and they are both singing, say, James Taylor songs and old Sinatra numbers — at that moment, it is kind of hard to hate.
Israel, like the United States of America, is broken.
But there is always hope.
Sometimes, that hope comes in the form of song.
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